How do you become a superhuman with the ability to perform amazing physical feats that most mere mortals would never dream of even attempting? That’s the question Dave asks Olympic athlete and member of the US Rowing Team, Hans Struyzna on this episode of Bulletproof Radio. Hans reveals how hard work, intense physical training, mental conditioning, and nutrition transformed him from an average person into an elite athlete with godlike strength and physical endurance.
Plus, as an added bonus, the tables get flipped when Dave answers a few of Hans’ questions. Make sure you stayed tuned for that.
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Announcer:
Bulletproof Radio, a state of high performance.
Dave Asprey:
You’re listening to Bulletproof Radio with Dave Asprey. Today’s cool fact of the day is that rowers are rated to be the most physically fit athletes in the world. Apparently ahead even of Crossfitters. Although I wonder about that. Physiologists say that rowing a 2,000 meter race or one and a quarter miles is equal to playing a bunch of back to back basketball games. There’s a unique cardio stress that’s put on your heart during rowing, which means that rowers have the biggest hearts of any athlete. That’s actually why the National Space Biomedical Research Institute trains their astronauts on elite rowing machines before they launch them into space. Which is kind of cool and maybe a reason I should start rowing. Although actually I don’t really row, even though I live near the water. It would be cool, but who knows? I might get wet.
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We should talk about InstaMix. InstaMix is something that makes Bulletproof coffee easy. All you’ve got to do is get the Bulletproof coffee beans, which are lab tested to be free of the toxins that make you crash. These things come from mold. Normally you blend with butter and Brain Octane Oil. When you travel like I do about 120 days a year, you don’t want to carry butter and oil like I do because it’s messy and requires a refrigerator. After a couple of years of developing products, we made this stuff called InstaMix. It comes in little packets. It gives you the butter and the Brain Octane Oil with zero insulin effects. It even gives you a little bit of pre-biotic fiber. When you do this you actually can travel with a lot more convenience or if you’re at the office and you want to have a quick Bulletproof, you stir this into a cup of freshly made Bulletproof coffee beans and you’re good to go.
It’s just a way to make breakfast faster. You can find it on Bulletproof.com, it’s called InstaMix. It also works while you’re rowing. You can actually just eat it right out of the bag and then cough really bad because that’s a really poor idea. Now if I didn’t foreshadow that today’s show was going to be about rowing, I think then you need to listen again because today’s guest is Hans Struzyna from Kirkland, Washington. He now lives in the Bay area. Hans is a member of the Elite USA Men’s Eight rowing team. He’s won or placed at the World Rowing Cup’s Senior Word Championship Trials, National Selection Regatta and many more. He’s been basically doing all kinds of crazy high performance athletic rowing things that put me to shame for any of my bio-hacking. Not only is he going to tell us what he does to be really high performing like this, but he’s going to ask me a few questions as well. Definitely of the bio-hacker mindset. Hans welcome to the show.
Hans Struzyna:
Dave thanks for having me. It’s a real pleasure and honor. I’ve been a fan of the show for some time. It’s kind of surreal to actually be on it this time.
Dave Asprey:
Well it’s my pleasure to have you on. I love to mix it up and get a picture of people who are putting principles to work at elite levels, which you’re totally doing. Then other people who are doing elite level research. We hear it from both sides because we’re all our own guinea pigs. You’re even more of a guinea pig than normal because you’re doing a very quantitative amount of work. Either you move faster or you didn’t. Either you pulled harder or you didn’t. There’s no wiggle room. there’s no self deception there, which makes it a very pure form of guinea pigmanship if there is such a word.
Hans Struzyna:
Sure. Absolutely.
Dave Asprey:
Let’s talk about how you got into rowing because frankly it’s an odd sport. It’s inconvenient to find water for one thing.
Hans Struzyna:
Yeah.
Dave Asprey:
Why rowing of all the things you could have done?
Hans Struzyna:
Well I was an athlete in other sports growing up. I tried football, basketball, wrestled a little bit, track and field, all the traditional stuff. It wasn’t until I believe the summer between my sophomore and my freshmen year of high school that my parents thought we should get out of the house and do a family activity together. We decided rowing, what the heck. We lived near Lake Sammamish at the time. We signed up for a class. We got in these big fat singles that were supposedly unflippable, but we proved that wrong very quickly, the four of us. Anyways, it just evolved. I joined the rec program for the summer. Then I didn’t want to go back to track or football or basketball or anything like that. I was like, “What the heck, I’ll give it a try and just kept going.” I found out I had a knack for it and got the bug so to speak.
Dave Asprey:
You found something you loved and just pursued it until the very highest elite levels.
Hans Struzyna:
It just was always about figuring our what the next level is. What’s the best I can be? Can I maximize this level? I found out, I can go to the next one. I can go to the next one. Here I am.
Dave Asprey:
What level is next for you? What’s past all of this because there’s always levels? What do you do at the top?
Hans Struzyna:
Athletically I mean you make it to the Olympics in a non-professional sport so-to-speak, an amateur sport. That’s kind of the pinnacle. Then it would be I guess going back for trying for a medal or trying to be a multi-time medalist or something like that. That’s really for each person to decide if that’s the way they want to go.
Dave Asprey:
What about you? What do you want to do next when you reach the pinnacle?
Hans Struzyna:
Yeah. Phenomenal question. I don’t really know what my plan is as far as athletically continuing because I’ve been to the Olympics already. To go back is a lot of work first of all and of course there’s no guarantee. You’re only as good as your last performance. I don’t know if it’s what I want to do next or if I want to retire and try something else.
Dave Asprey:
When my mom was a teenager she was invited to try out for the Olympics for swimming. She looked at that and said, “It seems like a lot of work.” She decided not to. Her unfair advantage was that she has abnormally large feet so it’s like built in flippers. She passed them down to me, which has been a curse ever since. I’ve got size 16 feet. I can’t buy shoes, it’s terrible.
Hans Struzyna:
Oh my gosh.
Dave Asprey:
I guess I’m a good swimmer as a result. Given that I’m unlikely to ever be in the Olympics one of the things that I know that the Olympic nutritionists do is they pre-screen the crap out of you. They do urinalysis, skin fold tests, resting metabolic rate and a bunch of blood work to see what’s going on. When they did that for you, did you learn anything useful? Was it helpful or were you already too dialed in, so it didn’t matter?
Hans Struzyna:
We worked with a nutritionist. Her name was Liz. She’s a member of the USA’s staff. Phenomenal nutritionist. She did an analysis of every athlete. Diet, how much you’re sleeping, how often you’re eating. What kind of stuff you’re eating. I had spent a fair amount of time dialing in my regimen so-to-speak. She liked what I was doing and we just added a few things here and there. It was more like implementing some supplements. Then trying to figure out how to get a few extra calories in every so often and try and gain some weight. The biggest thing that some of that information provided was that a lot of us on the team were actually low on vitamin D. There’s some varying opinions on Vitamin D versus performance. Don’t leave any stone unturned. We tried, I got on a vitamin D supplement. That was the biggest thing that came out of that. I was trying a lot of things. I can’t say that was the one thing that made the difference for me. I’m sure it didn’t hurt.
Dave Asprey:
It’s scary because vitamin D comes from sunlight exposure. You’ve got to get sun in your eyes and on your skin to get vitamin D. You typically see the sun more as an Olympic rower than almost anyone else, but you were still deficient so you went on a supplement. What about just rowing with your shirt off? When I go kayaking I wear a life vest, but no shirt for that exact reason. Did you do that?
Hans Struzyna:
Part of the thing is we train, the National team is based in Princeton, New Jersey. We were at the time we got tested we were coming out of winter on the East coast. It’s 40 degrees on the water, you’re not going to go shirtless on a day like that.
Dave Asprey:
It’s called hypo-thermic training.
Hans Struzyna:
I don’t know if you’ve ever had to be on the water when it’s that cold. It is not very fun.
Dave Asprey:
It’s brutal. Absolutely brutal.
Hans Struzyna:
We wear tights. We wear hats. We wear vests, you are covered.
Dave Asprey:
It’s because you’re in the middle of winter in New Jersey, which is very high up towards the North Pole. Of course you just didn’t have any. Then during the summer I’m guessing your levels would go up?
Hans Struzyna:
Yeah.
Dave Asprey:
I live that far North. I’m in Victoria, British Colombia. It’s crappy right now. In fact I’m going to go spend a week on an island with sunshine pretty soon here, because you need to get that vitamin D up some way. I use a suntanning lamp when I’m here too to activate the stuff.
Hans Struzyna:
That’s great.
Dave Asprey:
What did you eat when you were training? Walk me through a typical day.
Hans Struzyna:
I would start every day with some Bulletproof coffee. I know you were talking about the InstaMix, I had a bunch of that in Rio with me. We didn’t have refrigerators in our units. That was out, it was really great that I had the InstaMix for my coffee.
Dave Asprey:
It always sucked to try and control your nutrition for this huge important event without a refrigerator, that’s just primitive.
Hans Struzyna:
Luckily the dining hall was always open. They had a huge amount of food there, so you could really get anything you wanted.
Dave Asprey:
Oh that’s good.
Hans Struzyna:
Typically it would be the Bulletproof coffee before training or on my way to training. Maybe throw a banana. Then I’d do something like a goo while I was training depending on the type of workout we were doing. For an AT or high intensity work, then you would do the goo. You’d need the carbs. For a steady state, probably not. Then it looks like [crosstalk 00:12:09].
Dave Asprey:
I was going to say do any of your rowing friends on your team or your crew any of the other ones you know. Do any of them row with zero carb keto adapted rowing? I haven’t heard of that.
Hans Struzyna:
No. Not that I’m aware of.
Dave Asprey:
There’s some interesting camps out there. Some people are saying you can do the keto adapted Iron Man and all. I think it seems biologically complex and unnecessary. It’s nice to be able to burn two kinds of fuel even at the same time, which isn’t normally possible. That’s what you were doing because you still had ketones left from the Brain Octane and the InstaMix. You’re able to burn some of those and get some of the carbs from the goo. Could you feel a difference when you did it that way versus just a carby breakfast or scrambled eggs or something? It’s okay to say no. I’m not looking for a plug here. I’m wondering.
Hans Struzyna:
No, because before I found Bulletproof coffee I was doing a pretty big hefty shake that had peanut butter, oatmeal, bananas, I think I was doing coconut fat in there and some berries, frozen fruit basically. Then I found the Bulletproof coffee and like that way better.
Dave Asprey:
Got it.
Hans Struzyna:
Just flavor and taste, but also the way it made me feel. I can’t say that I had a huge profound performance impact. I think that over time my body responded better to doing the Bulletproof coffee for sure.
Dave Asprey:
What about protein? You are one of those people who works out enough that you’re going to need more protein than I do. I don’t work out nearly as much as you do. What do you do to get your protein in? Your breakfast is Bulletproof coffee, what else?
Hans Struzyna:
I actually started playing around with putting collagen protein in the Bulletproof coffee and that was a good start. Our nutritionist was asking us to do 25 grams of protein per meal five times a day.
Dave Asprey:
That’s a lot of protein.
Hans Struzyna:
Yeah, because of the amount. Basically her thinking was the amount of cardio we’re doing she doesn’t want us to trim down. She wants to keep the weight on and actually gain some weight in a lot of cases. You don’t want to emaciate yourself basically down to lose all this powerful muscle that you’re trying to build in the weight room and that sort of thing.
Dave Asprey:
Cool. What kind of protein do you normally use as a rower? You said collagen for sure. That’s not a complete protein. It’s the least inflammatory protein. I like to bulk up my protein. In fact because you get extra protein without excessive aminos that are inflammatory. That can’t be all you use. What other kinds of things? What forms were good?
Hans Struzyna:
That was really the only supplement. When I was doing the whey protein that you have as well. I was just playing around with different mixtures and combinations and just seeing what was good. Then it was traditional stuff like eating eggs, and beans, and meats, and whatever was available.
Dave Asprey:
Got it.
Hans Struzyna:
Cost effective as well.
Dave Asprey:
I know what you mean. It gets expensive if you’re only going to eat collagen protein or any other kind of high end supplement.
Hans Struzyna:
Yeah. Yeah.
Dave Asprey:
Now are Olympic dietitians pretty cutting edge or are they whole foods like, “Everyone should eat more whole grains and a balanced healthy meal.” Like a bunch of platitudes. How progressive did you find the advice you got?
Hans Struzyna:
That’s a really interesting question because it definitely was be whole all around. Eat your whole grains, eat your vegetables, eat your fruits as well. It was for me I felt like because I listened to your podcast and done some other research. I had a little bit better of a base to start from. My mom actually was really into nutrition for about five or 10 years for herself for fitness. I rode her coattails in that. I had a little bit of a base to start from. We were able to have a little bit of a maybe more advanced conversation. She also had to work with multiple teams. Every sport has an interesting starting place and has these opinions on the type of supplement you should use. She was with some athlete. She was saying if it has the word jacked in the title you can’t use it. That’s also where she’s coming from on some of that stuff.
Dave Asprey:
It’s really frustrating. I’ve spoken with a few nutritionists like that where they actually want to take the time to dial in and have highly compliant athletes, like Wiki would have been. Where they can talk about it. Like said if somebody was like, “If you’re going to eat M & M’s could they at least be the peanut ones because they’re better than the regular ones even though neither of them should be on your diet.” There’s a lot of frustration that happens there. You got some good advice there.
Hans Struzyna:
Yeah.
Dave Asprey:
It sounds like.
Hans Struzyna:
She liked more or less everything that I was doing. She had some few tweaks which definitely, we tracked over time. Definitely made some good improvements. I didn’t have to do a wholesale change. I wasn’t doing McDonald’s every day and not eating some meals. She’s trying to get people to eat regularly, that would be a big step for some people.
Dave Asprey:
I hear you. What about race day? You talk about supplements that say jacked on them. I guess I’m going to have to cancel my upgraded jacked formula. What do you do on the race day? Ergogenic aids, caffeine, FADE alanine, there’s all kinds of people. L-Glutamine, Acetyl-L-carnitine, I don’t know. What do you do if anything?
Hans Struzyna:
We as a team we’re trying the three basic supplements. Everyone has their form of caffeine. Some guys are popping caffeine pills, some people are up for two hours grinding espresso shots and putting back eight shots of espresso. I was more of a just do my Bulletproof coffee, try to keep my routine as consistent as possible. I would add in, I would do a nitrate shot about two hours or so before the competition.
Dave Asprey:
This is a oral shot just for people listening, not an injection.
Hans Struzyna:
Yeah.
Dave Asprey:
Beet juice kind of thing?
Hans Struzyna:
Yeah, it was concentrated beet juice. It had 400 milligrams of nitrates in it or something like that. I can’t remember the specifics of it.
Dave Asprey:
Okay.
Hans Struzyna:
We did that. We were also on a beta-alanine load and a maintenance phase through for about four or five months for our various training cycles leading up the the Olympics. We were just constantly dosing every day, two beta-alanine pills.
Dave Asprey:
That helps your mitochondrial function. You’re just making it so your muscles can make more energy, which is kind of cool.
Hans Struzyna:
Then those two were the big supplements that the team was doing. Then everyone had their little things that they would do. Whether it would be, I don’t know as simple as a goo or something like that right before we were launching or it could have been I didn’t go question everybody’s specific details. For me it was those two things. For me it was to make sure I’m well hydrated and feeling not full, but also not hungry. Which is an interesting place to try and put yourself. You don’t want to be so full that you’re vomiting at the end because you’re carrying around all this blood is going there. You’re trying to pull it out of the stomach and push it into your muscles. You also don’t want to be that hungry because then that’s distracting as well. Everyone has got their different way of doing it.
Dave Asprey:
I hear what you’re saying there because you really don’t want to be completely jacked up. It doesn’t feel good when you’re too full and you’re trying to exercise or you have to eat another meal. I totally get that.
Hans Struzyna:
As far as rowing is concerned those were the main things that we did. I heard people having other things or altitude and trying to include that kind of stuff in, which is cool but not something we did. That’s really what we focused on primarily as far as supplement and aids if you will.
Dave Asprey:
How about avoiding gluten, dairy, soy. Did you cut some categories of things out for higher performance or are you exercising so much you’re like a human garbage disposal? By the way, I’ve always wanted to be one of those. Where it’s like, “I eat anything and I feel great.”
Hans Struzyna:
There was a time when I tried to go gluten free. I found it was really really hard to get the amount of calories in. I think I lost 10 pounds when I went gluten free. When I was really trying. It was just very, very difficult for me to keep weight on. I decided I had to introduce it back in just to keep my weight up so I could be competitive. I’ve now gotten to the point where I can be fairly … I don’t call myself gluten free by any stretch of the imagination because I’m not. I definitely choose things other than bread and wheat when it comes to getting my calories in. Like rice for example. I do a lot of rice. As far as soy goes, I’ve never been much of a soy fan. Just the whole thing …
Dave Asprey:
It’s just not right.
Hans Struzyna:
I just don’t get it. Then maybe someone can explain this to me that makes sense finally. Then you’ve got all the … There’s the whole ethical thing with Monsanto. Then there’s the whole is it even good for you in the first place? I don’t know. I just don’t go there.
Dave Asprey:
I hear you. There’s plenty of reasons not to do that as far as I can tell.
Hans Struzyna:
It’s like Brussels sprouts. I don’t like Brussels sprouts and there are so many other vegetables if I want to eat green vegetables that I can do that I like more so why go there?
Dave Asprey:
I hear you there. What about on the physcial training frequency to perform at an Olympic level. How many days a week? How long each day? How much time goes into being an Olympic rower?
Hans Struzyna:
It’s definitely a day to day thing. It’s roughly speaking three to four hours a day, your heart rate is elevated. Ideally you’re in a zone for that many hours a day. You’ve got to ramp up through the workout sometimes. Especially if you get in good shape. Then you’ve got to push harder to get your heart rate up. Then it’s also a real … It’s an endurance sport. The longer you stay in it, the better you can get. Really what happens with rowers is that you become better as you get a little older. They say somewhere between 27 and 30 is typically a peak where you’re going to hit. Then you can maintain that for a couple of more years if you want.
Then you’ve got to adjust once you get in your early 30’s adjust your training so that your body is responding and you’re not killing yourself basically. At the level we were at it was four hours a day split over two practices. We would do one 24 hour period off every week. Which would be a Saturday afternoon to a Sunday afternoon. We wouldn’t actually have a full day. It would be 24 hours. Then you just rinse and repeat. Then go from there. Once you start to taper, you bring the volume down, but the intensity might go up. Instead of doing those four hours. You might only be doing two hours, but you’re doing race rehearsals and warm ups and stuff like that.
Dave Asprey:
What about the cognitive side of it? You’ve got your mental training down like that. US rowing team has more medals than any other country in the world. There’s no pressure. How do you deal with the pressure of something like that?
Hans Struzyna:
That’s a really good question. Rowing is as you can imagine very repetitive. You’re just in a boat. You’re moving back and forth. Blade goes in the water. Blade goes out of the water, repeat. There’s no trick plays and stuff. It’s all about focusing on these minute tenths and hundredths of seconds as far as your timing with everyone else on the boat. As well as being able to get all of your training, all the miles and all the hours you did of training into this roughly five and a half to six minute race and having the best strokes come out at that point. That’s part of why we train so many hours is because you need to get those repetitions in so that when the pressure comes on, autopilot will hopefully take over and you can just repeat what you’ve always done.
Dave Asprey:
You cut the thinking out of it because you don’t need to think because it’s just built in your nervous system?
Hans Struzyna:
Right. One thing we’re really big on in this sport was creating a plan and having plan before you go and sit on that erg for an erg test or go to the line for a race. The reason for that is at some point you’re going to get in there and you’re going to switch out of that aerobic into that anaerobic or vice versa, wherever you’re at and it’s going to hurt. You’re going to want to stop. You’ve got to have this plan. If you don’t have that the pain is just going to take over and you’re going to stop. You’re going to let up or something. If you have this plan you’re like, “No, no I know this is coming, I expected it, it’s like 90.” We’re 80 seconds into the race, I’m switching over into this aerobic. All of a sudden, “Okay this should feel this way.” Three big deep breaths and now we’re back into it.
Dave Asprey:
What about trust and flow states. It’s one thing to be in a flow state when you’re an extreme skier. You’re connected to a group of other people. How do you get in the flow? How do you do it with your team at the same time?
Hans Struzyna:
I think that is actually one of the biggest areas of improvement for rowers in general is recognizing that whole concept of flow. Everyone can say a time that they’ve been in it. Very few people know that it’s even potentially called flow. Even fewer know how to try and repeat that for themselves or for a team. That I would have to say again is just where like you said the trust, that’s huge. Also the repetitions come in on the water where it’s just like, “We’ve done this before, we know what to do, let it take over and just relax and breathe.” Not worrying about the result as much as worrying about taking the strokes. That’s usually when a crew really dials in on that concept, that’s when the best strokes happen.
Dave Asprey:
Do you guys do any sort of hippie stuff? Do you all sit in a room and meditate together so you can get in the same state at the same time. Do you like to sing Kumbaya together? Naked showers, I’m kidding. I have no idea. What do you do when you’re not rowing to build brotherhood. I don’t know the right word for it. There’s something you do when you’re really connected to a group of guys where you just know each other really really well. How do you foster that outside of whatever you call it. The whole?
Hans Struzyna:
Great question. That’s a challenge of course because everyone, especially at this level we’re all adults and we all have lives. We’re not in college any longer. Where in college it’s easy, you go to dining hall.
Dave Asprey:
Get drunk together.
Hans Struzyna:
Whatever, whatever it is. NCAA doesn’t need to know what we did or didn’t do.
Dave Asprey:
Amen.
Hans Struzyna:
Anyways what we did was we came up with a forced fun activity where we would go actually do mini-golf or bowling together as a team.
Dave Asprey:
Cool.
Hans Struzyna:
Those were pretty fun because it was like everyone has to be here. We’re going to have fun with each other anyways. Those were actually I think super valuable in the long run. You get out of the rowing boat. You get out of the practice. You see people in their normal clothes, there’s something about that.
Dave Asprey:
There’s a lot of research in building teams for business that’s similar. There’s a social aspect. No one can really tell you why. I can see how that would apply here as well. I’m thinking there’s got to be some hacks. Maybe there’s some Olympic or even pro trainers doing this. If everyone does heart rate variability training at the same time, interesting stuff happens. I’ve done that with an executive team before meetings. Sometimes we’ll all do five minutes of heart rate variability training all at the same time. We’re all in the same zone at the same period.
There’s some advanced stuff that … My little wheels are turning. With the 40 Years of Zen neuro-feedback facility outside Seattle. It would be interesting to get a team of four people through there. Then do everyone’s training at the same time. Then there’s things we can do to actually train you to be in-sync with someone else at the same time. That’s a pretty powerful thing. Where you actually you get a signal when your brain is in the same state as someone else’s. I imagine that would affect rowing. There’s no data about that it just seems cool.
Hans Struzyna:
Yeah, and one of the challenges with rowing is it’s not basketball or football, the money’s not there for all these kinds of things. If your team has a $3 million budget every year, that’s huge in the sport. You just got to decide where the money is going. Are you just going to have a small group and have four or five, six guy whatever. Spend a lot of money per head or are you going to bring a 30 person group together and just let the cream rise to the top in that sense?
Dave Asprey:
I like the $99 sensor heart rate variability version of that because that’s within the budget for everyone. You’ve just got to get over the dorky feeling. “Okay, we’re all going to sit here and we’re going to put these little clips on our ears. We’re all going to look at our phones and make them make bonging sounds together.” We do that at Bulletproof and it works.
Hans Struzyna:
I’d love to try that. There’s definitely a type A macho whatever thing you’ve got to overcome first, definitely in the rowing world. I’m sure everywhere too.
Dave Asprey:
That’s what I call the hippie BS. I see that too. When someone joins the company for the first time. It’s like, “You want me to do what?” We’re like, “Just try it.” Same thing with hedge fund managers. I’ve had an opportunity to talk to a bunch of high end money people about Bulletproof because they’re all interested in the stuff. This one guy calls me after international flights. “I finally did it.” It’s the opposite of, “Yeah, I control a billion dollars.” Now you’ve got to take a deep breath and focus on your heart. I can see that being a really big thing just from the people who I knew that were on crew at UC Santa Barbara. They probably weren’t the meditating types. Then again, that was 20 years ago. That might have changed. What about mentorship? Did you have mentors that helped you? What’s your take on that becoming a world class athlete. It seems like learning from someone who’s done it before would be the easiest way.
Hans Struzyna:
Yes. I can’t remember who said this quote. The essence of it was if someone has been there, it can be repeated and done again. I think that’s a huge part of mentorship or just of being better at something. You’ve obviously done a great job being a bio-hacker and putting forth all of this information and these products. Your results show that someone else could follow your plan or follow some version of it and get a similar or hopefully the same result. Now that’s biologically we can have a different conversation. Everyone is a little different and that’s for sure. Nonetheless I think it applies.
With rowing it’s really simple. If you have these numbers as far as power and strength and endurance and stuff, you can expect this result. We have years and years and years of data to prove if your boat average is on the erg, whatever it is 550 or better you have a really really good shot at getting a medal. It’s ridiculous how high it is. If you go for a second Olympics your shot of winning a medal is twofold higher or something like that. There’s just all this information. Then to get to those places. You think, “Okay, I’m like this high school kid for example. I have no clue how I could even get in the ballpark.” I think that’s where the mentorship part of it comes in.
Dave Asprey:
That makes a lot of sense. What are you doing to be a mentor now that you’re an Olympian? What are you doing to help other people.
Hans Struzyna:
My, I won’t even call it a side project. One of the things I never had is I never had someone really sit me down and say, “This is what you need to do. This is how we can do it. Let’s make a plan.” I had coaches who had various inputs into that, but it wasn’t one consistent person. I thought I’ve been through the ringer. I’ve been 12 years in the sport. I’ve seen every part of it. Why don’t I try and be that person for somebody? I’ve started this website called CoachHans.com. It’s my personal website where people can go on there, reach out to me if they have questions, concerns, comments whatever about the sport of rowing. I can give them my two cents on how to improve. We can work together for an extended period. I usually try to do three months at a time. Basically make a plan. Have weekly check-ins. Have someone who’s accountable, but also a little more knowledgeable than them. That’s one of the things I’m doing right now. As far as giving back and mentoring.
Dave Asprey:
Thanks for doing that by the way. When I was a teenager I didn’t realize that people actually wanted to help. It was sort of like, “If you want something you have to go out and take it.” Which isn’t how the world is. It’s amazing. It actually feels really good to help someone without getting paid for it or anything like that. I was too stubborn and frankly angry to be a very good recipient of mentorship until I was a little bit older. Then it dramatically changed my career, I’m really grateful for that. I think it’s cool you’re doing it. Thank you.
Hans Struzyna:
No. Thank you. I appreciate that. You’re right, that’s exactly right. You never knew that these older guys would actually care frankly. It’s so true, everyone I know on my team would at least hop on the phone every once in a while with you and talk for 15, 20 minutes no problem. Whether they turned it into a more formal thing or not, I don’t know, that’s their decision. I can say honestly that every single guy on the Olympic team spend time and mentor young kids if they had the opportunity. To some degree, maybe not full time.
Dave Asprey:
Sure. For the kids listening, here’s the deal. Nothing pisses off a mentor like them taking their time to share basically wisdom that they accumulated from making mistakes which is where wisdom usually comes from. To either have you A, not show up. Which is really shitty or to show up unprepared and ask really basic questions that either they should have already known or were easily Google-able or in your book or something. The thing is they give you really good advice and you don’t do anything with it. You come back six months later or two months later, how’d that work out for you? Oh yeah, I forgot. It’s like no, take notes. Some of this stuff is precious knowledge somebody who won four Olympic medals that’s somebody who sweated blood. You should respect it enough to at least try it.
Hans Struzyna:
Absolutely. It’s cool that you don’t have to make every mistake in the book, you can go learn from somebody. It’s like reading somebodies book. You can ideally get 10 years of a couple hundred pages and hopefully pull one 10 year mistake out of it. That you then won’t go and make on your journey. Whatever your journey is. Whether it’s athletics or bio-hacking or relationship or whatever.
Dave Asprey:
Well said. Now you had some questions for me. This is going to be an unusual interview, where you’re at a very high level and some tweaks for Bulletproof. Let’s turn the tables. I’ve never done this on Bulletproof Radio. It seems like a cool idea. I’m excited. This maybe would be what I would do on a coaching session. If we had one where I was coaching you on the Bulletproof stuff.
Hans Struzyna:
My first thing going back to the whole vitamin D thing you said. You’re a rower, take your shirt off basically. Unfortunately it wasn’t that simple because then there’s also the concept of sunscreen. You don’t want to get sunburned because that will zap our energy. Then, thus hinder our performance. Some rowers wear a lot of sunscreen. Some literally are lobsters, so ignore them. For those of us who do wear sunscreen, do you have any advice or hacks around sunscreen because I know some have a lot of terrible chemicals. You’re sweating, you’re absorbing that stuff as well. That’s probably not good either.
Dave Asprey:
If you wear sunscreen all the time you’re depriving your body of a really important biological signal. Ultraviolet B radiation activates your vitamin D and activates your cholesterol. You’ll have more rowing power if you get some vitamin D in your skin because you didn’t use sunscreen. That’s not saying you should never use it. My most powerful form of sunscreen is a hat, but when you’re on the water it’s going to reflect up on you. You’re going to want to put sunscreen on your face. The safest sunscreen is also the very sexiest. It’s non-micronized zinc oxide. Like the lifeguards from the 70’s with the big white thing on their face.
Hans Struzyna:
Exactly.
Dave Asprey:
It looks like crap, but if you’re already married, who cares? I’m kidding. There’s also room to put a brand right there, like a small [crosstalk 00:39:25] on your nose. That’s ridiculous, but if you expose a small amount of your skin to sunscreen on a regular basis. That would be your face, the back of your neck and your ears. The sun is going to age you there. I would tell you don’t wear sunglasses all the time. Probably excessive, not probably excessive ultraviolet causes cataracts. A lack of ultraviolet causes metabolic dysregulation. We have this weird thing we do because we’re simple animals. We’ll always say if too much of something is bad, therefore none of it is good. We did this with sodium. The current recommended sodium consumption if people actually did it would increase heart attack risk because sodium consumption is so low. Salt isn’t good or bad, you want it in a range. The range depends on the amount of stress that you’re under and a bunch of other stuff. Telling everyone to be at the lower end of the range is scientifically invalid.
Hans Struzyna:
Sure.
Dave Asprey:
I’ve think we’ve done that with sun. Sunburns are bad for you. If you go out there with your shirt off for a half hour every day and you develop a tan. You don’t want to look like a lobster ever, but if you have a tan you’re actually going to perform better. There’s some intriguing new research out there. It’s in my new book actually around melanin. The compound that makes you tan. Melanin has the unique power to break water in the presence of ultraviolet light, has the power to break water down into extra electrons and extra oxygen. When you’re rowing, you want extra electrons in your body every way you possibly can. I think having a tan and especially on race day. If you have a base tan, would go without. That’s every tiny little advantage.
There’s one group down in Mexico who believes that at least in the eye 26% of the oxygen inside the eye comes from melanin, not from your lungs because there’s no physiological … There isn’t enough blood flow to get oxygen levels where they are. That’s an interesting sun hack that’s the opposite of sunscreen. What I would consider doing, and you know your sport better than I do. They have the skin tight rash guard, but even a little bit thinner. Basically a sun protecting tight shirts.
I’m going to Hawaii in a little while. I’m going to not use sunscreen the whole time I’m there, except maybe on my face. If I’ve had enough sun, if I turn very lightly pink but don’t get sunburned, I’ll just put on a long sleeved rash guard and be good to go. Your legs are probably not that exposed. I guess it depends on … I’m used to kayaking where you’re a little bit more covered. You tend to not burn on your legs nearly as easily as your upper body, for blood flow reasons. You’d have to decide what to do there. I find more sun exposure on the legs is relatively safe.
Hans Struzyna:
I have as well.
Dave Asprey:
Melanoma on your shin is not going to come from a sunburn, it’s just not. My grandfather died from Melanoma on his big toe.
Hans Struzyna:
Wow.
Dave Asprey:
He got a lot of sunburns on his big toe. No, he walked in cotton field full of pesticides as part of his career. There’s also a correlation of a lack of sun exposure can also contribute to skin cancer. You also don’t want to look old and toasted.
Hans Struzyna:
Wrinkly and stuff.
Dave Asprey:
I think put it on your face, use that very high end cosmetic grade stuff. The other thing is Astaxanthin which comes from eating wild caught sockeye salmon, shrimp and frankly from supplements. I would be taking, if I was getting a lot of sun like I will in Hawaii. I’ll be taking Astaxanthin probably 12 milligrams a day, which is a pretty heavy dose. Take it with your Bulletproof coffee. Don’t blend it in, that would probably taste gross. It might even harm the acid. You just want to have fat in the system when you take the capsule.
Hans Struzyna:
Cool.
Dave Asprey:
I actually did eight hours in the sun without sunscreen at 7,000 feet elevation with no sunburn. When I was doing lots of Astaxanthin and I had my vitamin D levels at 100. You can get some protection, where your skin is like, “I’m ready.”
Hans Struzyna:
Natural.
Dave Asprey:
I think as an athlete Astaxanthin can be really helpful for that.
Hans Struzyna:
I never heard of that. That’s a good one.
Dave Asprey:
It’s A-S-T-A-X-A-N-T-H-I-N.
Hans Struzyna:
Astaxanthin, cool.
Dave Asprey:
All right. That’s like internal sunscreen.
Hans Struzyna:
Perfect. Another question I had and it rolls into this. I listened to the interview you did with Dr. Tammy. She was talking of course about hormones. More broadly I was thinking do you have a recommendation as to getting your hormones and your blood work done? How to do that? When to do it? How often to do it? Then what to do with that information, once you have it.
Dave Asprey:
I believe that you should get yourself tested at least once a year. Probably as an athlete I’d want to do four times a year, like once a quarter. I’d want to see my inflammation markers and my sex hormone levels would be really important. If you’re dealing with any other things, like your inorganic acids can be really helpful to tell whether your mitochondria are working well.
Hans Struzyna:
Okay.
Dave Asprey:
Bottom line is if you have your lipid panel, advanced lipid panel that tracks all these inflammatory markers, you can figure out if you’re over trained. I see this a lot in the population that I work with, which is often times type A. They’re CEO’s of big companies or they’re like, “It’s not enough that I’m CEO. I also have to be an Iron Man.” All right, here’s the deal. People who are heavy duty athletes. They sleep and they recover and they eat all the time. You’re a CEO, so you get on an airplane and you fly all night, then you’re going to train heavy. Then you go to meetings all day. Then oh, go out to dinner and drink a bunch of wine. What they end up getting over trained and they break themselves. It’s a function of managing overall stress in your environment really matters. As someone who has a job and is working out like this. You’re at that risk.
Getting your information markers and your sex hormones is going to tell you when you need to recover more. You might need to dial back on the workout because your testosterone dropped. Your sex hormone binding glob went up and all the informational markers went up. Okay, “I’m in the, I need more sleep and I’m just going to do some stretching and just a light work out, instead of killing it.” We love to be very structured. It’s so easy to wake up every morning and exercise. I hate to tell you that’s kryptonite for most people. Probably not for you because you worked your way up to that and because you eat for that. You probably sleep for that too. By the way, do you focus on sleep quality and recovery as part of what you do?
Hans Struzyna:
Yeah, that’s another thing I implemented was the sleep app. I think I heard you and I’ve heard some other friends talk about the sleep app where you track it and it figures out what level sleep you’re at. Then also the notes have been really fun to play with. I’ve been wearing an eye mask to bed and it sounds totally nerdy but it’s like when I did that my sleep quality went up about 15 percent by itself.
Dave Asprey:
Isn’t it kind of crazy?
Hans Struzyna:
It’s weird and now I do it every night regardless. I have this silly airplane mask. You know untied air mask they gave us but honestly it made such a huge difference for me. Yes, tracking sleep and I know just anecdotally more than anything, eight hours is my number for right now. When I get less, I can do it once in a while but if I’m consistently seven or less hours four or five days a week, I can feel it. Having some of this information definitely helps. Of course now I’m not training nearly the same level just because I’m off right now. Then I can get away with a little less sleep or a little bit of this or that. I’m definitely tracking and paying attention to it.
Dave Asprey:
That is one of the things that’s really going to show in your blood results. If you get those every quarter or every six months, you can get them online now and that’s most affordable. Where you can go, there’s a variety of lab services like that. I’ve worked with WellnessFX. I was an advisor to them before they got acquired. They’re relatively pricey but their dashboards really good. It tracks over time, you pay a little bit more get a better data analysis. You can get those same results somewhere else and track it yourself but those sex hormones are so important.
Oh your thyroid, you should always get an advanced thyroid panel at least once a year. That makes a huge difference. What I’m looking to see in the Olympics and even in pro sports is a little bit of enlightened thinking. Yes, people abused synthetic testosterone in the 70’s, then even then roid rage and all these people dying. It was very over wrought in the media. If your testosterone or growth hormone levels are low, you should be allowed or even required. I wouldn’t require it but I would make it highly encouraged, to supplement those things appropriately and under a physicians care. It is unethical to take a healthy young guy like you. By the way, how old are you?
Hans Struzyna:
27.
Dave Asprey:
27, right. Between 30 and 40 your testosterone is going to decline, your stomach acid is going to decline. We have this bizarre double standard where you’re allowed to take Betaine HCL capsules to help you digest your food better if you want to even though it’s a normal part of aging to have less of it. You’re not allowed to top up your testosterone to keep it within range if you get it to the bottom of your range. You will have more injuries and more likelihood of dying because you didn’t keep your testosterone where it should be. It’s not cool, it’s part of aging. The idea is that well, if you’re going to compete you’re not allowed to do this. I interviewed a guy named Andrew who write the Doper Next Door. He used testosterone supplementation without permission as a semi pro cyclist. Then came clean, gave back all of his awards and wrote a book about it. He’s a journalist, he did it as a journalism thing.
Hans Struzyna:
Right.
Dave Asprey:
He’s like I was able to keep up guys, he’s in his mid 30’s. Keep up with guys 10 years younger than me. It was amazing. I got myself back. Why do we torture ourselves without having these things? You’re not allowed to do that as an Olympian but you are allowed to eat a lot of egg yolks that are raw. Like the get some ice cream recipe in the book. I’d be pounding that stuff and then look at the results in your labs and see if your testosterone’s where you want it to be.
Hans Struzyna:
Sure, that’s super helpful. My father has this thing and I don’t know if you’re familiar with it but it’s called Meniere’s disease, does that ring a bell to you?
Dave Asprey:
I’ve definitely heard about it. Tell listeners more about it. What it is.
Hans Struzyna:
My understanding of it is that there’s not one thing that causes it, it’s like a ton of symptoms lumped together. He describes it as vertigo, nausea, just foggy, general fogginess. Like you have a sinus infection but there’s no sinus thing going on. When he got diagnosed with it, what they recommended was limiting or almost eliminating sodium intake. For him, he’s like oh this is easy. I don’t really eat sweets, I don’t eat a lot of baked goods. I don’t whatever else they told him in the office. Salad dressing was one of the big things he had to pay attention to. They said 1,500 milligrams or less a day is what you’re allowed. He’s been sticking pretty strictly to that. He’s like as soon as I get, as soon as I can add up my milligrams because he’s pretty aware. Once I get to about 1,500 is when I start to feel dizzy and nauseous, and vertigo, and all these other things. I’m wondering if you have any thoughts about what he can do or not do in this case?
Dave Asprey:
You live in the right part of the world for him to come and visit. He’s not in the Bay area is he?
Hans Struzyna:
No, he actually lives in Seattle.
Dave Asprey:
Well there’s a guy in Alameda who’s been on Bulletproof Radio. Dwight Jennings is his name, Northern California, cranio-facial something. What’s going on there and I don’t know the specific causes I’m not a doctor. I’m not an expert in this, but I’ve looked into this a long time ago for another client. If you adjust your jaw alignment, the pressure on the nerve that runs basically through the ear, goes down. It’s the stuff that causes TMJ pushes on the nerve and eventually it effects the vagus nerve. There’s another Bulletproof Radio interview with Stephen Morris, the guy who created something called poly-vagul theory, the different parts of that nerves that cause different things.
What Dr. Jennings had found and this is work that I’ve had done on myself that profoundly improved my nervous system function. Is that he can quite often, reverse ringing in the ears and vertigo by allowing the jaw to relax. You actually lower the jaw through a splint you sleep with and allow your jaw to move forward. Suddenly ringing in the ears go down, pressures in the ear can go down and that could be a profound thing. It’s non surgical. Literally you go in and you 24 hours a day you have a little thing that raises the height of your jaw. That alone can be important.
The other thing is there is progressive hearing loss with that condition so increasing mitochondrial function would be terribly important. You can do that with even beta-Alanine, some of the supplements you do. The other mitochondrial enhancing substances, I talk about those all the time. Those are all going to be really beneficial. The other thing that I would consider that’s completely not studied, for this, at least if it is studied I’ve never come across the studies. It’s unlikely to have been studied. It’s called cerebral electrical stimulation. In fact I did it last night.
Hans Struzyna:
Oh wow.
Dave Asprey:
It’s also known as a russian sleep machine. What you do is you hook a little electrode to each ear lobe and you run a very small current between the ears. It synchronizes the brain, it causes increases in brain-derived neurotrophic factor and a bunch of other things. It’s usually used for depression or things like that. Russians invented it because they figured you need less sleep when you use this thing. If they can make astronauts sleep less, they could pay to send less astronauts to space. “How do we burn them out without burning them out?”
Hans Struzyna:
Right.
Dave Asprey:
They run about 1,000 bucks. It’s a prescription item. Most of the time, there’s a couple consumer grade ones out there. Cerebral electrical stimulation CES, I would want to try that for a couple months and see what happened. The reason I’m interested in that is that running that small current actually enhances mitochondria. It provides electrons there. If you’ve got parts of the ear that are at risk. If you relax the jaw, allow better blood flow there do that. Maybe throw in some hyperbaric oxygen and cold laser in the ears, I’ll be damned if you couldn’t feel better. I know that’s hackable but none of those are you going to see at a normal clinic.
It’s just considered too bizarre. All of those are mitochondrial enhancers at one level or another. I think that could be a powerful stack. Man, I’m not a doctor, approve it with his doctor. These are supported things I would do if I had ringing in my ears without a diagnoses of anything. Take that with a grain of salt. If there’s 10,000 people listening to this. I don’t think any of that stuff is even remotely dangerous, CES probably has some very, that’s the most edgy of those. Good God, it’s been around for 40 years and I don’t think anyone has died of it.
Hans Struzyna:
Sure.
Dave Asprey:
So I think it’s pretty safe.
Hans Struzyna:
Definitely. You have time for one more question?
Dave Asprey:
One more, let’s do it.
Hans Struzyna:
All right. Protein, obviously a lot of my teammates are all in the whey protein category. That’s what’s pretty popular in the sports world, as I’m sure you’re aware. I’m really liking the collagen protein as well. Do you do a cocktail of the two? Do you recommend one versus the other? What’s your thinking on that?
Dave Asprey:
Whey protein is really powerful as a detoxer and an immune stimulator. It also raises insulin pretty quickly. It contains a lot of inflammatory amino acids like Cysteine and Methionine. You need to get those amino acids, but you don’t need excess amounts of them. You see a lot of these body builders and pro-athletes like, “Protein, it’s all about the protein.”
Hans Struzyna:
Yep. Yep.
Dave Asprey:
Here’s the deal. If you get bad protein farts. Almost all body builders have, it’s because your body is trying to turn the protein into fuel. Protein is not meant to be a fuel. Protein is meant to be a building block. When you use protein as a fuel you tend to get inflammation. You tend to get extra ammonia. Your kidneys and your liver don’t thank you for it. Your job is to eat as much protein as your body needs for muscle mass, but not more and to get the rest of the energy from fat and even from carbs. Like slow burning starches. Collagen protein is unique. The collagen that I manufacture is predigested so it goes in very, very easily so it’s highly available.
It’s also high in Glycine, which is an amino acid that doesn’t cause inflammation like these other ones. It’s really good for repair of the bone scaffolding is made out of collagen. Your skin is collagen, your joints are collagen. If you’re doing repetitive motion you want your hips, and your knees, and your elbows, and wrists, and all that stuff to hold up forever. Replacing those tissues with appropriate building blocks that aren’t present in a normal diet works very well. I found that I can increase the net protein consumption using collagen without increasing the consumption of the inflammatory amino acids.
You can have more protein than otherwise. At your level, not more than four tablespoons of whey would I recommend. There’s many different types and kinds of whey. The whey that I work with in the Bulletproof product is from grass-fed dairy. It’s not a cheese by-product. We actually take the fresh raw milk from the cows and take it straight to manufacturing whey. It’s not a fermentation by-product. Most of what you buy out there in those big burlap sacks of whey that you see body builders often times do. Other body builders that are super health conscious and all. This is traditional got to get the protein.
Hans Struzyna:
GNC stuff.
Dave Asprey:
Yeah, even GNC has started carrying some quality stuff.
Hans Struzyna:
I don’t mean to knock them, but you know what I mean, the traditional …
Dave Asprey:
The stuff you find at any bulk store, where it’s like your mass gainer 5,000, $6 for two pounds of protein. You’re like, “What’s in there?” The answer is whatever they can find is what’s in there. Straight gluten protein. I don’t think that it’s wise to turn to protein as a fuel source. A lot of athletes do that. “I’m just going to have protein and a salad for lunch.” It’s like actually there’s just building blocks in there. Salad, you can’t burn salad. There’s a few vitamins in there and you have some protein. You’re actually starving for energy when you do that.
Your body will convert the chicken breast into energy, but it comes at a much higher cost than pouring some Brain Octane on there, which goes to energy very quickly or for that matter having some rice with it. Then using that for energy and having the protein available as a muscle building material. Four tablespoons a day for athletes and two tablespoons a day for non-athletes. The whey that I use also has 20% colostrum in it, which is mother’s milk. It’s because they value of whey is the immune signalling these IGG molecules. I can get way more of those in there. I’m like whey is precious. It needs to be done right. It needs to be in moderate to low amounts. If you’re doing eight scoops of whey a day, you’re actually not benefiting yourself. I don’t think that’s a healthy practice.
Hans Struzyna:
Sure. Sure.
Dave Asprey:
Lots of eggs if you’re not allergic to them.
Hans Struzyna:
For me I do a scoop of collagen in my Bulletproof Radio. Would you even say throw in a scoop of whey as well? That’s enough protein for the morning kind of thing or is that …
Dave Asprey:
I would do two scoops. The collagen scoops are around what eight grams?
Hans Struzyna:
Yeah. I think that sounds about right.
Dave Asprey:
Seven point eight if memory serves. Like this morning I had three scoops of collagen in mine. That’s 21 grams of protein. Whey you can put in coffee, but the coffee needs to be cooled down a little bit first.
Hans Struzyna:
I tried that one time and I was drinking little chunks of whey, it was weird.
Dave Asprey:
Yeah, I’m not a huge fan. It doesn’t need to be cold coffee. Not super hot because at least if you’re going to use my whey. That stuff is expensive because it’s 20% mother’s milk, colostrum. It’s biologically delicate. If you blend the crap out of a whey like that which is full of peptides. You end up breaking them down mechanically. What you want to do is blend up the coffee. Then add the collagen. It’s cooled down a little bit from being in the blender. Add the whey, just pulse it enough that it’s not chunks, but it’s not all beaten all to crap. Either that or just have the whey separately. You can mix it with a little bit of almond butter, it goes in real easy.
Hans Struzyna:
There you go.
Dave Asprey:
It’s literally like a ball. Just put it in a bowl. You can mix several days worth. Just stir it up and just take two big tablespoons. There’s your whey and you get some nice … Add some salt in there, that would be good.
Hans Struzyna:
Sure. That’s awesome. This is great. Hey, that makes a lot more sense. I’m going to totally try some of these things and figure out exactly what the results are. That will be exciting.
Dave Asprey:
Awesome. I’m really eager to hear what you learn from that. Just if you in three months from now with your dad, just drop me a note if you would and let me know if any or all of those things made him feel better? That’d be really cool because if so we can talk about that. Talk about that just because there’s probably a couple thousand people listening right now with that same condition.
Hans Struzyna:
Sure.
Dave Asprey:
The benefits of having half a million people hear an episode are that we might help some of them.
Hans Struzyna:
Definitely. I’ll talk to him about some of that stuff and see what he thinks.
Dave Asprey:
Awesome. We’ve got one more question for you.
Hans Struzyna:
Please.
Dave Asprey:
This one you’re probably expecting. That is if someone came to you tomorrow and said, “I want to kick ass at everything I do. What are the three most important things I need to know?” What would you tell them?
Hans Struzyna:
That’s a great question. I would say first of all it would be about your mindset and your … To me all this other stuff is … bio-hacking is awesome, but to what end? What are we trying to gain out of this? Are we trying to be the best family person we can be? Are we trying to be the best athlete we can be? I don’t know. That’s for them to decide. I would make sure they’re pretty clear on why we’re doing this in the first place. Secondly I would say, start tracking your food. If you feel sluggish at two o’clock, I actually had a friend who was a little overweight. He was sitting in an office for a long time. All he started doing was just tracking his food on one of those food tracker apps. I can’t remember which one it was. He was just writing it down. Between that and going for some jogs in the morning he lost 30 pounds.
He just became aware. It gave him a budget, how many calories he was allowed. Then slowly he started to educate himself more. Then third I would say is basically don’t take yourself so seriously all the time. Have some fun, laugh once in a while. That’s really hard for me to do. I’m as serious as I can possibly be all the time. My girlfriend is constantly trying to get me to laugh and relax a little bit. I’m too high strung sometimes and too serious. I know that I need to do that. What I found helps is first of all just finding funny things through the day and being willing to laugh at them. Also come from a place of some gratitude. Tell people when you’re thankful for them. I’ve literally started calling a couple people every day who I think about. I’m really thankful for their friendship. I call them and tell them. It’s unbelievable how much that little thing will make a difference in my day.
Dave Asprey:
Excellent piece of advice. Hans, where can people find out more. You said CoachHans.com?
Hans Struzyna:
Yeah. My website is CoachHans.com, you can drop me a note there. That’ll send me a direct email on Facebook. I don’t really have a page. I guess I have a Twitter, but I don’t really use it. I guess the website is probably the best place. It’s CoachHans.com.
Dave Asprey:
Awesome. Thanks for being a guest on Bulletproof Radio. Thanks for kicking some ass at an amateur sport. It’s so cool to see people pursue excellence just for its own reward instead of just for a paycheck. Nothing wrong with a paycheck. Still it’s cool that you found something you love and you’re doing it.
Hans Struzyna:
Dave, hey thanks for your time. Thanks for the opportunity to be on. Have a good rest of your week.
Dave Asprey:
Awesome. Have a great week.
Hans Struzyna:
You too. Bye.
Dave Asprey:
Bye. If you liked today’s episode you know what to do. Head on over to Bulletproof.com com and pick up some InstaMix or some Brain Octane or some coffee and give it a try. If you haven’t actually tried Bulletproof coffee made with right ingredients it’s a whole other level. Coconut oil simply cannot do what Brain Octane does. If it did, I would tell you. Here’s the deal. You feel a lot more ketones. There’s a new study from the University of California that actually talks about ketone formation and Brain Octane. It turns out it raises ketones way more than coconut oil. Putting coconut oil in your coffee makes it taste like a pina colada and it doesn’t raise ketones. Give it a shot. That’s at Bulletproof.com Brain Octane Oil.
